The field of photography enjoys an ever increasing popularity among both amateur and professional photographers. In addition to the wide variety of cameras and other photographic equipment available today, photograhers often seen creative alternatives to conventional photographic techniques. As a result, today's photographers often seek to develop their own film, thereby affording them greater flexiblity and creativity with the quality of their photographic prints.
Traditionally, because various photographic procedures involved in the development of film must be conducted in the absence of light, it has been common for these procedures to be carried out in a large enclosed area from which extraneous light may be excluded. Such traditional darkrooms are generally quite large in order to accommodate the required equipment, chemicals, photosensitive paper, etc., and to afford the operator the space required to operate the equipment. Because these traditional darkrooms are necessarily quite large, and often quite expensive, the use of such a darkroom is often impractical for today's nonprofessional photographer. As a result, those not able to afford the purchase or rent of traditional darkrooms are relegated to having their photographic film developed and processed by conventional means.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an alternative to costly and impractical traditional darkrooms. A viable alternative need be large enough to accommodate a photographic enlarger and afford the operator the space necessary to effectively compose the enlarger, film and photosensitive material into a desired configuration. Thus, a desirable darkroom need be vertically elongated to the extent required to allow space for telescoping action of the enlarger. However, it is also desirable that a darkroom be collapsible and portable to permit the operator to use the darkroom at virtually any location.
Furthermore, traditional darkrooms are meant to contain all materials and equipment necessary to develop and process photographic film. This results in an undesirable risk of contamination of the film and photosensitive material by the chemical processing solutions in the darkroom.
In addition to amateur photographers being resigned to conventional photographic development and processing techniques, professional photographers, under pressure of time deadlines, often must delay processing of film shot during the course of their work until a conventional darkroom can be accessed. The resultant time delays involved in developing the film are often unacceptable to the professional photographer.
To overcome the disadvantages associated with traditional darkrooms, various smaller portable darkrooms have been developed. However, these also suffer from inherent disadvantages that make their use as a substitute for conventional darkrooms undesirable. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,655 to Norris, patented on Sept. 16, 1980, teaches a portable darkroom assembly. However, the Norris darkroom cannot accommodate an enlarger within the light tight enclosure. Instead, an enlarger is placed outside the Norris assembly and exposing light is transmitted from the enlarger through a small aperture in a rear panel of the assembly. As a result, the operator must compose the photogrpahic film and photosensitive material in a fixed predetermined special relationship with the enlarger, thereby permitting the development of only certain sized photographic prints. In addition, because the various chemical processing solutions used in photography are housed in the Norris assembly, there is a continuous threat of contamination of the film, photosensitive material and other photographic equipment by the chemical solutions in the darkroom.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,811,767 to Purnell and 4,026,649 to Leonhart teach portable photographic assemblies, however each of these assemblies require the operator to be enclosed within the portable photographic area. This also increases the risk of contamination and simultaneously decreases portability.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a portable collapsible darkroom which provides the operator the space necessary to house a photographic enlarger as well as the ability to develop photographic film at virtually any location without risking contamination of the film and photosensitive material by chemical processing solutions in the darkroom.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which is easily transportable and which allows the operator access to the inside of a light tight enclosure without requiring the size and expense of traditional darkrooms.